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The industrial capitalism of the North and the plantation-based capitalism of the South, which depended on slave labor, were two rival capitalist systems that fought each other throughout the American Civil War. Slavery's spread into new areas, and the country's political and economic destiny were at the heart of the struggle. Following the Union's victory, the Southern system was destroyed, and free-labor capitalism triumphed nationally.
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Fordism was a particular phase of 20th-century economic growth. The term "Fordism" is frequently used to characterize the mass-production method invented by the Ford Motor Company in the early 20th century, as well as the typical postwar pattern of economic expansion and the related political and social order in advanced capitalism. The long postwar boom is sometimes attributed to the Fordist mode of expansion, which became prevalent in advanced capitalism during postwar reconstruction. -
Robert Sobel's book The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920s provides a detailed account of this era, marked by an apparently unstoppable rise in stock prices driven by general optimism and speculation. Although the broader economic prosperity of the "Roaring Twenties" contributed to the environment, the market surge gained significant momentum starting around March 1928. With increased corporate profits and industrial production, the U.S. economy was growing. -
Returning World War II veterans had access to government-backed house loans with low interest rates and little to no down payment thanks to the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, popularly known as the GI Bill. Millions of Americans suddenly became homeowners, which fueled the suburbs' explosive growth and contributed to the development of a robust middle class following the war. -
The Nixon shock was a series of economic actions taken by US President Richard Nixon on August 15, 1971, in response to rising inflation and the threat of a currency crisis. These actions included wage and price freezes, import surcharges, and the unilateral cancellation of the US dollar's direct international convertibility to gold. Despite Nixon's public declaration that he intended to restore the dollar's direct convertibility following the implementation of the Bretton Woods system reforms -
The consumer computer era began in early 1975, when the Altair 8800 caused a stir by offering enthusiasts and hobbyists an inexpensive microcomputer kit. This device proved that computing power could reach people and small offices beyond mainframes and minicomputers. This change had broader economic implications in the United States. The rise of personal computers fueled the expansion of the electronics hardware and software sector, which in turn led to an increase in computer equipment exports. -
The idea of shareholder value was beginning to acquire traction as a corporate philosophy in 1982. After a challenging period, the stock market recovered, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average recording its most significant gain in seven years in 1982. Concurrently, there was a change in corporate strategy as businesses began to prioritize shareholder interests through actions such as stock buybacks, made possible by a new SEC regulation that year, and higher dividend payments. -
In 1994, Pizza Hut introduced PizzaNet, a test online ordering platform. The pilot connected the online orders to a central server in Wichita, Kansas, and was situated in the Santa Cruz, California, area. PizzaNet is frequently mentioned as one of the earliest, if not the earliest, examples of an online food ordering system and an online order for a tangible commodity. This can be seen as the Grandfather of the modern-day Amazon model of online shopping. -
Americans began to have more access to the contemporary Internet around 1995, when commercial Internet service providers made it available to the general public. The Internet's commercialization spurred the tech industry's explosive expansion, gave American companies access to international markets, and established the groundwork for the digital economy, which changed communication, productivity, and consumer behavior nationwide. -
When the US housing market's ten-year growth peaked in 2006, residential development started to decline. The US economy entered a recession as losses on mortgage-related financial assets began to put pressure on international financial markets in 2007. In response, the Federal Reserve provided liquidity and assistance through initiatives to enhance the efficiency of financial institutions and markets, thereby reducing damage to the US economy.